Are you connected? Do you tweet? How many “Likes” or followers do you have on Twitter or Facebook? Social media can be the 800 lb. gorilla in the corner of the Web that business owners don’t know what to do with. Moreover, if you are a business owner-chances are, you have more than one social media account. Consequently, you can find yourself spending exorbitant amounts of time updating your status, promoting sales and cultivating customers.
These actions are necessary, but they do not have to invoke hours of time online. There are dozens of social media tools that can help you save time and money, yet still build your business. In fact, a report released by the Century Link Resource Center shows that by using some of these social media tools, one mid-sized company saved $42,000 in just one year and reduced the amount of time spent on updating social networks and designing a keyword campaign-all by making a $6,000 investment.
Having become proficient in the use of social media, you are likely recognizing that a great deal of time can be spent maintaining a social media site. After all, tracking down hot topics, checking reports and doing analysis can be time consuming. Fortunately, others have already recognized this, and have created a variety of tools to help make managing a social site easier and more productive for the business owner.
Consequently, there is no need for you to spend excessive amounts of time researching,
tracking and analyzing your sites; rather begin using these 5 social
media tools:
MajesticSEO offers
link analysis and acquisition counts. Site owners can get full reports
on their website. There is also a paid version that gives you link
details on your competition and helps you find high impact links for
SEO.
Andy Beal’s Trakur monitors
social media sites giving you insight into what others are saying about
your brand, identifies their influences and shoes where they are
commenting
SocialMention is
a free Real Time and social search tool that crawls social media sites.
It has a variety of options, outputs and tools that help you create
spreadsheets to track your progress.
PostRank shows
you what topics are hot, so you can include information about the most
popular search queries.
bit.ly is
a URL shortener that allows you to create a domain name for Twitter and
Facebook that is recognized as your own.
Tips for Building a Social Media Network
Now that you have your tools and apps in place for your social media profiles, you will want to make sure your fans and followers know as much as possible about what your business can do for them. The tips below will help:
Make sure people know about your social media accounts. Link them through your blog, website, newsletter, signature line, etc. Pages such as Flavors.me are a great way to get all your sites listed in one location.
Pick an avatar or custom background that stands out as this will help people recognize you.
Be authentic and accessible- people want to know who they are dealing with.
Be polite and helpful- Offering a service or giving advice or free consultations shows expertise and builds a good business reputation.
If possible, spend some time each day (some people schedule a set number of minutes) on your social media account. If you can’t do this- or don’t want to, then consider hiring someone to do this for you. The more people see "you" the more they will trust you. Note that the more strategic time (NOTE: Not playing games or sending goofy messages to your high school buddies) you invest into social media, the more benefits you will rea. Just having the account and letting it sit won’t do you any good, as it is SOCIAL media after all…
Be persistent. Building business through social media will pay off, but you, or whoever you appoint, have to invest some time.
Using social media is proving to be one of the business owner’s best friends. Take time to make your business social media profiles benefit both you and your customers. You will soon see an increase in business. Whether you maintain the page yourself or hire Page Progressive to do it for you, you don’t want to miss the potential of social media – your competitors won’t. get started today!
Now that you have set up accounts at a few (or several) social media profiles, you will want to use it to its full potential. Of course, maintaining a social media listing takes time, so learning how to get the most of your efforts is important. Fortunately, making your company’s social media profile profitable can be done through the effective use of tools and applications that can increase your business while decreasing the number of hours you spend on your Facebook, Twitter, Buzz or other social media profiles.
7 Facebook Apps to Improve Your Business
As one of the most recognized social media sites, Facebook has massive potential for increasing your number of customers. Recognizing that a number of applications have been designed to assist businesses in customer services and product promotion. Some of the most useful are:
Contests, promotions and polls are a great way to support your business and encourage interaction with your fans, just be sure to follow the Facebook guidelines for using contests.
SocialToo allows users to update their profile pages and promote Twitter from their Facebook status update box.
SocialOomph provides update tools for Facebook, Twitter, and StatusNet.
Network Blog makes it easy to promote your blog on Facebook and connect with others.
JobMagic is a recruiting application that expands a recruiter’s range through Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Social Store Builder enables a store owner to sell and display product from their Facebook page.
IAnalyst– This new Facebook app allows you to integrate HTML into your page. It is especially helpful for small business owners.
6 Twitter Management Tools
Depending on your business, you may have opted to set up a Twitter account. However, as you are limited to 140 characters per tweet, you will want to make the most of your text and Twitter time. Here are some tools to enhance your Twitter business account:
HootSuite.com offers a free tool to help manage multiple social media accounts. You can personalize columns, view multiple feeds, and create messages then select what social media accounts to post to. You can even schedule when tweets go out and have custom searches for topics that interest you.
CoTweet allows you to manage as many as 5 accounts with a single login; there are workflow management tools and the ability to take notes on Twitter for co-users to view.
EasyTweets is a low management tool for multiple Twitter accounts. It allows you to post and track RSS feeds in Google Analytics, set up continuous searches for brand mentions, and follow those users who mention your brand.
TweetDeck keeps track of multiple social media accounts. You can follow topics with saved searches, manage conversations and records, and share or watch video clips, YouTube and photos.
PeopleBrowser allows a visual browser based dashboard view of social activity and to create and manage groups by adding public/private tags.
Twitterfeed.com takes RSS feeds from a blog and posts them as a Tweet linking them back to your site. However, be careful not to overuse this automation tool as it can then be seen as spam and people may stop acknowledging it.
With the growing popularity of Facebook and Twitter, you can expect to find more and more tools to take advantage of these services. With the speed at which social media platforms are being developed, having tools to help automate and simplify things are almost essential! Stay tuned in for the next post where we will be exploring more tools for social media research and also tips for building a social media network!
Every city is different. Some have multiple
opportunities for adventure, others are known for a certain culture,
and some are known for particular types of commerce, but they all have
one commonality – numerous streets, highways and interstates bringing
traffic in and out of them. A well-marketed website has a lot of similarities
with a city. The roads leading into and out of the city are comparable
to links on a website. And just as having more roads facilitates more
traffic for a city, the more links to your website, the greater the
traffic as well, resulting in greater revenue for you.
Implementing Link Building
A web link is a connection from one web
site to another, or even another place in the same website. Link building
is the process of building a large quantity of incoming links. "Incoming"
means that another website links to your website, and not the other
way around. Effective link building is best done by using the following
approach:
Set aside a regular block
of time to dedicate to link building. Although link building is
not tremendously complicated, it does take time. In addition, it is
critical to consistently review your link building and actively seek
more links on a regular basis. Unfortunately, link building is never
"done" as there are always more things you can do to build
links, so setting up a regular time devoted to link building will enable
you to avoid getting complacent with your link building efforts.
Evaluate link building
partners. Use tools like the Google Toolbar (with page rank enabled) which identifies what
search engines think of a sites quality/reputation. The higher the page
ranks (from 0-10) the more a link from that site to yours is worth in
boosting your search engine ranking. Just like a positive referral from
a previous employer would be more valuable to your resume than a referral
from your mom, websites also have varying levels of value.
Find potential link building partners
by searching for phrases that you would like to rank for. You want to
look for reputable sites, such as professional organizations that offer
articles and news posts on their site. Then write an article and submit
it to them to use. If they approve your article, they will most likely
be happy to credit you at the bottom with a link back to your website.
Use directory services
such as the DMOZ Open Directory Project and the Yahoo Directory. These sites feed thousands of other
directories, so being listed in them will result in building a mountain
of incoming links to your site over time.
Set up a blog. This
is one of the best ways to build traffic to your site. It is done by
creating a lot of good content that other people would want to link
to. A blog is a great way to informally build pages of content to your
site over time. Make sure to have your web developer install the blog
locally on your site if possible (i.e.website.com/blog), rather
than using a free external blog to get maximum results.
Post articles and press
releases. A great way to build links is by writing articles and
press releases then posting them on numerous article syndication or
press release websites.
Use social media. Social
media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn all can be used
to build more traffic to your site. Experiment with a few social media
sites, find one that you like and dive in. Become an active participant
– read posts, answer people’s questions, actively look for opportunities
to link to other people and for opportunities to promote your blog or
other articles. However, be careful not to come across as only caring
about promoting yourself as nothing will turn people off faster than
that.
Be patient!
Link building is an ongoing process and it can take time to reap the
benefits of your hard work, but rest assured that if you keep at it
you will find significant boosting for your site on search engines.
And the best part is that most of these things don’t cost you a penny.
Forms of Link Building:
There are several forms of link
building to consider.
Contextual links– These are links that are found within large blocks of content. These types of links have high value to search engines.
Cross linking – When 2 or more websites simply exchange links, but the sites do not have any relevance
to one another and is done only for the sake of building links;
although this used to be a valid and commonly used link building
practice year ago, this is not highly recommended anymore as the links
often cancel each other out as far as page rank is concerned.
Deep linking– Deep links are links that go to a subpage within a site rather than the site’s home page. These are very valuable when link building.
External links– External links simply mean they are linking to a website other than your own.
Link bait- Targeting,
creating, and formatting content to encourage others to direct links to
that specific page. Often this is done with polls, contests, really
good content or other materials that other pople find valuable.
When you take the time to implement link
building, the roads into your city can become numerous. Yes, link building can be time consuming, but link building is one of
the keys to high page rankings. The key is to get started, jump in and manage your time wisely!
One of the aspects of link building that we tackle for our clients is making sure that they are effectively using social media apps like Facebook and Twitter. These are the two really hot social media apps right now and not getting up to speed on these fabulous services can be a detriment to the success to your business. One of the things I hear a lot is "Those things will never impact my business" and I cringe a little, because the people usually saying that know very little about what these websites actually do. I’m not saying that these sites or any social media is going to double every business’s revenue every time, but it could…and it’s free to use, so why not at least give it a try? Once you know what these services are capable of, I’d be suprised if you don’t see the value in it for your company. Here is a basic description of what these services are and a few reasons why all business owners should be in the know regarding the two currently most popular social media sites out there.
Facebook for Business
Facebook is a website that lets you connect to friends by entering the high school and college you attended and finding other people that may have been in your class. You can also enter tons of other information about yourself like where you work, what church you attend, movies you like, etc. and that helps other people to find you and request to be a "friend" of yours. When you become a friend with someone, any updates they post on their account will show up to you when you log in, so you’ll see if they uploaded a new photo from their vacation in Tahiti or if they’ve posted a status update saying they are "on their way to an internet marketing workshop." There are also functions that allow you to post notes (which are similar to blogs), photos, videos, events and even other 3rd party applications that let you play games, rate movies, identify all of the places you’ve ever travelled to and much, much more. Every aspect is centered around other people following what you do on Facebook and commenting on it. For example, if you updated your status saying that you are a Twitter addict, one of your friends may reply and welcome you to the club 😉
One important aspect of Facebook is that you can create causes, groups, and more importantly "fan pages" for a company or organization that allows other people to become a your "fan." This is a good way to get more exposure for your business, share information about your company and interact on a more personal level with your clients or customers.
Twitter for Business
Twitter, in my opinion, is a very simple way for people to get a taste of how social media can affect your business. Twitter is, by definition, a "micro blog." That essentially means it is a way to share very short thoughts with other people. It could be a recommendation of a company, or movie, website or it could be a reply to a post that someone else has made (which is called a "ReTweet.") Blogging can be a very valuable way to build your online presence and establish your authority in your industry but many people are intimidated by the thought if writing a daily, or even weekly article. The great thing about Twitter is you are limited to 140 characters, so all rules of grammar (okay, maybe not ALL ) are thrown out the window in favor of brevity and it requires MUCH less of a time commitment.
One of the more powerful aspects of Twitter is that people can search for relevant tweets and find people. So if you "Tweet" about a new special that you are offering at your business, someone may be searching on Twitter and find your post and then decide to start following you. Just like becoming a friend of someone on Facebook, when you follow someone on Twitter, it means you will see their posts when you log in, so you can keep up with what they have to say, and they will then see your posts from that point on as well. This is very powerful for a business owner as you can follow other experts in your industry and grow your knowledge (not to mention more personally connect you with anyone in the world – even the President), but it also establishes you as an expert as well. The key thing to remember is to keep your personal posts to a minimum and try to remain focused on your industry, if you want to keep the attention of your followers. Chances are, they started following you to find out more about your industry expertise than what you had to eat for lunch 🙂 Read our article on Twitter for more information.
Great, Why Should I Care?
One interesting development of how people have responded to the increasing popularity of social media is they now check these sites when determining who they want to do business with. Having a Facebook fan page for your business with a ton of fans and positive reviews speaks a wealth about who you are and many people tend to trust this non-biased feedback over brand identity alone. So this means that you need to be careful to put your best foot forward when you post on any social media site, because they are public, afterall.
Be polite, be relevant and keep it short and sweet.
If you plan to use Twitter for a great deal of personal updates, great! BUT, create a separate account for you personally that is separate from your business account so you can create a distinction and allow people to follow what they are most interested in – you personally or you professionally.
Another thing to be wary of is that there are people out there that use these social media apps for sending junk or solicitations. So it is best to get email notifications when new people follow you or become your friend and check them out to make sure you approve their association with you. And if you don’t like what you see, simply block them.
In conclusion, these tools are only as good as you make them. If you do not use them, they won’t help you. But if you do use it, it’s important that you keep up with your friends or followers and make sure that you are protecting your brand and actively participating with them. There are a lot of ways to burn your time on the internet, and these two can definitely fit that bill, but as long as you use these with a purpose in mind, you can build your business. Also, you can’t keep up with every social media site out there effectively, so pick a few to stick with. These two mentioned in this article are good ones to start with, and if you are feeling particularly spunky, another good social media site to check out for your business is LinkedIn.
Are you connected? Do you tweet? How many “Likes” or followers do you have on Twitter or Facebook? Social media can be the 800 lb. gorilla in the corner of the Web that business owners don’t know what to do with. Moreover, if you are a business owner-chances are, you have more than one social media account. Consequently, you can find yourself spending exorbitant amounts of time updating your status, promoting sales and cultivating customers.
) are thrown out the window in favor of brevity and it requires MUCH less of a time commitment.